What's Your Pitch?

Being in transition, I seem to be making my pitch to a lot of people in many different industries these days. I keep hearing how important it is to have a pitch ready to go when you meet new people, interview for jobs or meet Donald Trump in the elevator if that's who you are targeting to meet. As I speak with more and more people, I realize how important the pitch really is. It keeps you focused, gets to the point and serves as an effective tool to market your experience and knowledge. I think a pitch of up to two minutes will be effective and keep you on people's radar. If it's longer than that you might start losing people's attention.

I attended a job search event recently and met a few people who could really benefit from having their pitch down pat. When asked by the organizer about what they did and what they wanted to get from the session most people tended to share a bit more information and elaborated a little longer than they could have. I like to treat these events as a chance to practice my pitch, gain more insight and to make any improvements.

At another recent event and early enough before many people arrived a few of us started doing our pitch. I think some of the people hadn't thought about their pitch before or maybe just saved it for a more formal business event. As we started going around the room, the energy level and enthusiasm suddenly increased. It's also a good ice breaker.